reassure my partner veggie is ok

[hollya]

hi, i'm new here and am a veggie, have been since i was 8. please can someone with vegetarian children tell me that they are healthy and well.
my partner doesn't agree with bringing up our baby as vegetarian and it is really irritating me as i know it is a very healthy and normal way of life.
our baby isn't born yet (due may 9th), but this is creating issues already.
someone help!!!

I've just skimmed over that article, um, malnourished kids in Kenya are healthier when they get some meat? Er, yes, they would be! They're malnourished to start with, giving them 2 spoons of anything nutritious every day for 2 years is going to improve their health! But the piece also says

"...Prof Allen's assertion that some nutrients could only be obtained from animal sources was incorrect. Even vitamin B12, which is only found in animal products, was used to fortify vegan alternatives such as Marmite.

Vegetarians could obtain sufficient calcium from sesame seeds, nuts and fortified soya milk, and iron from dried fruit and fortified breakfast cereals, the spokeswoman added.

The African study involved 544 children in Kenya, typically aged around seven, whose diet mainly consisted of starchy, low-nutrition corn and bean staples lacking these micronutrients. Over a period of two years, one group of the children was given a daily supplement of two ounces of meat - equivalent to roughly two spoonfuls of mince."

sorry, but you cannot extrapolate that vegetarian diet = nutritionally inadequate from that study. And plenty of vegetarians are unhealthy, if they live on chips and pizza anyone will be. But a balanced vegetarian diet can deliver all the nutrition a person (or child) needs.

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Hi Hollya
I am vegetarian and DH doesn't eat red meat. At home we eat vegetarian. Being vegetarian is a choice not a religion... this has alsways been the hardest thing to get through friends and family...
If in given day I decide I want to eat a piece of fish, I don't fret about and eat it. The same with DD. She mostly eats vegetarian, but she has eaten a piece of fish and chicken here and there... never red meat though ( I guess that's where my religion start... )
I think the key to any diest in variety, and that is hard work whether you are veggetarian or meat -eater!! If someone only eats meat, it won't be very healthy either!

I just thought I mention in terms of B12... which the guardian mentions as essential.... DD loves marmite! I think she gets more B12 than any meat eater this way!

The Kenyan study had four groups - 1 had 2 spoons of meat (mince I think) a day, 1 had 2 spoons of dairy produce (milk?), 1 had the calorific equivalent of the pevious two groups but in an oil supplement form and the last group had no extra nutrition. The first two groups did much better than the last two groups with the first (meat) group doing significantly better than the second (dairy) group.

I thought it was quite an interesting and valid study and was not so much anti-vegetarianism as anti-veganism.

So why shouldn't someone bring up their children as vegetarian until they are old enough to decide if they want to eat meat?

Why do some meat eaters have this ludicrious opinion that seems to believe a healthy balanced diet omitting meat is depriving a child ffs?!?!

And the whole lacking protein/iron in a veggie diet is only an argument put forward by people who really haven't got much of a clue about foods and their nutritional value - if they did they would be aware of all the vegetarian alternatives rich in these nutrients.

My iron levels were high throughout pregnancy - infact they didn't go down at all by the time I had my 8 month bloods. The mothers to be suffering low iron levels in my NCT classes were meat eaters who where at a loss as to how to increase their levels.

I agree with the "choice, not relligion" view.
Hollya...
Just wandering...how far would you go bringing a child up as a vegetarian?
If you go out somewhere and your child wants something that has meat in it, would you say no?
Would you ban them from eating meat anywhere?
And if yes, doesn't that present another moral dilema - that of whether to impose your own choice on another human being whose body might actually need the meat at that point?
Isn't a vegetarian, or mostly vegetarian diet at home good enough?

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I think the problem is that people raised as meat eaters can sometimes be very ignorant to what they are actually eating, I see beef as 'a lump of cow' because that is what it is, how is that insulting?

Meat is the decaying, rotting, decomposing,
putrefying flesh of a dead animal. The more rotten it becomes, the more tender it becomes. That is why meat is
allowed to age. Dead animals contain all of the poisons that were in the animal at the time it was slaughtered,
including adrenaline. But animal flesh today not only contains all the poisons produced
as a consequence of dying, but also all of the injected and force-fed chemicals, drugs, and poisons introduced
for rapid growth and an attempt at disease prevention.

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Also agree with seashells.

Not many people would choose to eat rotting fruit or veg but if meateaters want to eat rotting animal carcasses so be it - just don't attempt to preach to me about what is healty for me or my children.

I can't believe how heated/ insulting this debate has become. What has happened to letting people live their own lives as they see fit? Ok, so an opinion was asked for, but I think many people on this thread have gone far beyond this and used it as an excuse to preach. So you're all perfect are you?!!

More likely to be a lump of bullock than cow...just to be irritatingly pedantic.

If I was a vegetarian I would bring child up veggie and then allow him/her to make own choice when the time came, because to do it the other way round would mean that I had to compromise the reasons i had for my own vegetarianism. I think that is the way most of us make most of the choices around upbringing - do it the way we do things and then let the child take a different route if they so wish later.

Hollya - I'm not sure how you can best handle it with your dp, though. As someone said, it won't be an issue for a while, anyway. In the meantime, perhaps you could subtley get people other than you to re-assure him, so that it doesn't seem to be a battle of wills between you.

I'm sooooo almost perfect you just wouldn't believe it

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alterego, I take your point about veganism, I'd be less happy with that nutritionally I think.

Don't mean to insult or provoke anyone, but I've always wandered about certain things...
I do understand the value of vegetarianism - but not the reasons why it has to be strict.
Do you 'fail' as a vegetarian, if you have a bite of meat?
What do you think will happen if a supposedly vegetarian child has a tuna sandwich at a party? Is he/she going to be told that that's very bad and to spit it out immediately?
And if meat eating is that bad, wouldn't the child be left with the impression that people who eat meat are bad?
Do you believe not eating meat makes you a better person?

I am veggie and DH isn't and it was an issue between us when DD and DS came along. In the end I decided to let both DD and DS eat fish and occasionally (quality) meat. I'm a macaroni cheese type of veggie as opposed to a more balanced nuts/seeds/pulses veggie. I completely agree that a properly worked out veggie diet can supply all the needs of a growing child, but TBH I couldn't be bothered to work it out to a degree where I would be satisfied that I was giving them the best possible diet. If I was more principled and organised I would have had no qualms about bringing them both up as veggies and letting them make their own decisions later. As it is I regularly wish that I had gone down that route - mainly because I feel guilty watching them eating meat because they are both animal daft and I feel that I am colluding in the whole 'awww isn't that lamb cute lets put it on a plate with a bit of mint sauce' thing. I feel that rather than giving them a choice, I am denying them that choice. And I will make my position v clear when they are older and start asking about the origins of their food.

Sorry, this doesn't really make sense but I guess I am saying if this is important to you, hollya, then stick to your guns - work out the nuitrition side of it and go for it. As far as your partner is concerned then I can only suggest that you stress the amount of sh**e that ends up in meat (processed or not) and do the maths re nuitrition so he knows you have your child's best interests at heart. Don't be a hyprocritical sod like me!

Nothing much to add that hasn?t already been said, but I?m also veggie and am feeding ds veggie food. Ds is healthy and enjoying a varied diet.

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Sorry - haven't had time to read the whole thread so sorry if this is old ground but I find the whole pointy teeth/ we're meant to eat meat arguement really tedious. I have no doubt that if I lived in a cave X amount of years ago I would have been out hunting (and tucking in) with the best of them in order to survive. Unfortunately the reality of the modern meat industry is a millions miles (years?) away from the original scenario which led to the evolution of pointy teeth - TBH I think a smarter survival tactic these days is to avoid meat (especially processed) like the plague. I expect our teeth to evolve likewise.

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happyMum - I totally agree!

I have 4 children aged 4, 9, 12 and 14. All have been brought up as vegetarians from birth and they are all very bright and sporty too (not trying to sound smug but just to reassure). They are all slim but not thin, very healthy and rarely even have a cold - certainly no more than anyone else at school. When they were young and went to parties or at school and wanted to try meat things, that was fine - I've never said they couldn't eat meat if they want to. The older three now all choose to be veggies. Breakfast is easy - fortified cereals and milk. They are not allowed just toast.
They choose the veggie meal of the day at school. When she remembers, the 14yo takes a teen vitamin/mineral supplement. I do have to think ahead for supper - they are just as fussy as all kids and all like different things. I have always said that if they show any signs of ill health from their diet I would give them meat, but fortunately they have all thrived. There's no way the 2 girls would eat meat now anyway, though the boys aren't as committed. I never criticise others for eating meat and so far no-one has openly criticised me though some people are interested in how we 'manage'. Hope this helps.

Actually, I've never said vegetarians don't have a healthy ballanced diet or that they don't care about their children's food.
It's not a personal attack, I'd never try and tell people what to eat or what to feed their children - just thought that, since we're talking about these issues, I'd raise a few questions.
By the way, I didn't suggest saying to a child that he/she is bad for eating meat, just that eating meat is bad in itself.
HappyMumof2, why so defensive?
I thought, because for many people being vegetarian is a moral choice (rather than personal taste for example, or as well as) it is perfectly logical to ask whether they think they are becoming a better person by not eating meat.
Just wanted to know, that's all!